Egyptian judges suspend talks with president

CAIRO (AP) — In their latest face-off with Egypt's Islamist rulers, the country's top council of judges decided Wednesday to suspend its participation in a government-backed judicial reform conference following a renewed push by lawmakers on a controversial bill that would force thousands of their colleagues into retirement.

The Supreme Judicial Council said in statement published by the state news agency MENA that it was backing out of the "Justice Conference" expected for later this month. It had been sponsored by Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, and judges were supposed to come up with a plan to remake their institution.

The conference was seen as an overture to the judges by Morsi, who has clashed frequently with the judiciary since becoming president last summer. Morsi's allies say Egypt's judiciary is filled with supporters of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, who have worked to undermine the transition to democracy and the Islamists' rise to power. Judges say Morsi has tried to interfere in their affairs and curb their independence, with an eye to control them.

The crisis over the judiciary is the latest of many challenges facing Morsi, who faces a weakened economy and opposition from a wide range of mostly secular-leaning groups. Morsi's backers say the opposition is stirring up unrest to undermine his rule, while his opponents say Morsi, who was elected with 51 percent of the vote, has failed to live up to his promises of being inclusive and ignored the goals of the uprising against the longtime autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak.

Many judges already had reservations about the conference, citing mistrust between them and the president and his Islamist allies.

The new bill, proposed by Islamist lawmakers last month, has sparked uproar. One of its most controversial clauses drops the retirement age for judges from 70 to 60. This would affect nearly a quarter of the country's 13,000 judges and prosecution officials, most of them in senior positions, including in Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court.

The Council said in its brief statement that the decision followed moves by Morsi's Islamist allies to resume debating the law, which "contradicts the requirement of convening the conference." The council said it had consulted with the country's top courts and judges before taking the decision in an emergency meeting. There was no immediate comment from the President's office.

The council's six judges met Morsi last month, and the two sides agreed to form a committee of legal experts that would draft legislation to reform the judiciary. Morsi said in a statement that he will personally adopt all the conclusions of the conference for proposals of bills in order to submit them to the legislative council.

The Egyptian judiciary has become a significant battleground between Islamists and the largely secular opposition. It is the sole branch of government not dominated by Morsi's Islamist allies, although he does have some backers among the judges. A protest by opponents and supporters of the bill turned into violent street clashes in April.

The judiciary has dealt Islamists several political setbacks. Courts dissolved the Islamist-majority lower house of parliament last year, saying the law governing its election was invalid.

This year, a court forced a delay in elections for a new parliament when it ruled that the election law had to be reviewed by the Supreme Constitutional Court. That court is due to issue a verdict next month in a case challenging the constitutionality of the current legislature, the Shura Council, which was mandated to issue law until a new parliament is elected and is discussing the judiciary law.

Senior judge Ashraf Nada, who presides over Cairo's Appeal court, said the new drive to push the law into discussion in the Shura Council was a tactic to pressure the SCC ahead of the decision on the body's constitutionality next month.

"The return of the law to the Shura Council despite a promise from Morsi that it won't be discussed until the Justice Conference is convened is a conspiracy," Nada said. "If Morsi couldn't hold them to their word, he shouldn't have called for the conference in the first place."

Nada warned that the law discussed in parliament threatens to "destroy" the Egyptian judiciary because it would send thousands of senior, well trained judges to retirement, without a way of replacing them.

Essam Sultan, a leading member of the Islamist al-Wasat party that introduced the proposed law, said the conference should still be convened with "representatives of the people" even if judges do not attend and then its recommendations be sent to the Shura Council.

He wrote on his Facebook page Wednesday that the judges are not above scrutiny, and that the public is looking for justice to be meted out after many years because of "huge cracks" in the justice system.

"It is a mistake for some judges to think that they alone are interested in conferences and draft bills that relate to matters of justice, and that the people don't exist," Sultan wrote. "The solution is with the people."

Judges say the lawmakers are violating the country's new constitution, which requires that the judiciary be consulted on any laws pertaining to their profession before taking it to the legislature. In an emergency session last month, the powerful Judges Club, the main organization representing Egypt's 13,000 judges, said the law is trampling on their rights and vowed to complain to international organizations against violations against the judiciary.

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Tear gas fired as Egyptian Islamists target security HQ

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces fired tear gas to disperse a small group of hardline Islamist protesters who were attempting to scale the walls of the state security headquarters in a Cairo suburb late Thursday night.

Around 2,000 protesters from several Salafi Islamist groups had staged a protest earlier on Thursday night outside the security headquarters against what they said was a return to the force's pre-revolution methods.

After security forces fired tear gas, the remaining protesters, some of whom had also attempted to break into a nearby police officers' club, left the area.

The protest points to lingering suspicion harbored by the hardliners about security agencies used against them by ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and which, they say, Islamist President Mohamed Mursi has been unable to reform.

The protesters, some waving the black-and-white al Qaeda flag, chanted slogans against Mursi and accused him of building a security apparatus no different from the old one.

Earlier, at the height of the protest, no police presence was visible outside the security headquarters, where protesters tore down Interior Ministry flags and erected several al Qaeda flags and set off fireworks.

A small group had earlier on Thursday evening attempted to break down a door on the headquarter's perimeter but gave up before causing damage to the door. A Jewish Star of David was drawn by some protesters on the wall's perimeter.

The Salafi groups had issued a statement earlier in the day saying state security organs had returned to "criminal practices" such as summoning citizens for investigation, threatening the achievements of the 2011 uprising.

Egypt dissolved the feared and hated state security apparatus, which had been used by Mubarak's administration to crush political opposition, including Islamists who were repressed under the old guard, the month after he was toppled.

It was replaced by a new National Security Force, which the Interior Ministry promised would serve the nation without interfering in the lives of citizens or their right to exercise their political views.

The protesters had marched from a nearby mosque after evening prayers. Some chanted to onlookers in apartments on streets clogged by the march "come down from your houses, state security is Mubarak".

The system of law and justice has been a major stumbling block in post-Mubarak Egypt. A rift between the Islamist rulers and the judiciary, which Islamists see as controlled by Mubarak loyalists, is steadily widening amid a broader struggle over the future character of the country.

Earlier on Thursday, an Egyptian judge referred a complaint filed by a police spokesman against popular hardline Islamist cleric Hazem Salah Abu Ismail to the state security prosecution, setting a hearing for Saturday to begin the investigation.

State newspaper Al-Ahram reported that the complaint called for Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim to arrest Abu Ismail on charges of "terrorizing police officers" after Abu Ismail urged his supporters to attend Thursday's protest.

The police spokesman's complaint added that such demonstrations hindered officers in their work to protect national security.

(Reporting by Abdelrahman Youssef and Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Maggie Fick and Tom Perry; Editing by Alison Williams and David Brunnstrom)

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Kidnappers target Christians in Egyptian province

MATAI, Egypt (AP) — Ezzat Kromer's resistance to his kidnappers did not last long. One of the masked gunmen fired a round between his feet as he sat behind the wheel of his car and said with chilling calm, "The next one will go into your heart."

The Christian gynecologist says he was bundled into his abductors' vehicle, forced to lie under their feet in the back seat for a 45-minute ride, then dumped in a small cold room while his kidnappers contacted his family over a ransom.

For the next 27 hours, he endured beatings, insults and threats to his life, while blindfolded, a bandage sealing his mouth and cotton balls in his ears.

Kromer's case is part of a dramatic rise of kidnappings targeting Christians, including children, in Egypt's southern province of Minya, home to the country's largest concentration of Christians but also a heartland for Islamist hard-liners.

The kidnappings are mostly blamed on criminal gangs, which operate more freely amid Egypt's collapse in security since the 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Crime has risen in general across Egypt, hitting Muslims as well. But the wave of kidnappings in Minya has specifically targeted Christians, and victims, church leaders and rights activists ultimately blame the atmosphere created by the rising power of hard-line Islamists.

They contend criminals are influenced by the rhetoric of radical clerics depicting Egypt's Christian minority as second-class citizens and see Christians as fair game, with authorities less likely to investigate crimes against the community.

Over the past two years, there have been more than 150 reported kidnappings in the province — all of them targeting Christians, according to a top official at the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police.

Of those, 37 have been in the last several months alone, the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Kromer, a father of three, was snatched on Jan. 29 as he drove home from his practice in the village of Nazlet el-Amoden. By the next day, his family paid 270,000 Egyptian pounds — nearly $40,000 — to a middleman and he was released.

"I cannot begin to tell you how horrifying that experience was," Kromer told The Associated Press in his hometown of Matai, 110 miles (180 kilometers) south of Cairo. His left cheek where he was punched repeatedly is still sore, as is his index finger, which one kidnapper repeatedly bent back, threatening to break it.

He says he was left with the feeling that, as a Christian, the country is no longer for him. He has abandoned his profitable practice in Nazlet el-Amoden and is making preparations to move to Australia. "My wife would not even discuss leaving Egypt. Now she is on board," he said.

"There are consequences to Islamist rule," he ruefully said. "Things are bad now. What is coming will certainly be worse."

Responding to the allegations that authorities do not aggressively investigate crimes against Christians, Minya's security chief Ahmed Suleiman said it is because victims' families negotiate with kidnappers rather than report the abductions.

"We cannot be held responsible for kidnappings that are not reported to us," he said, blaming hardened criminals for the kidnappings.

Christians say they don't bother to report because they have no confidence in the police.

Essam Khairy, a spokesman for the hard-line Islamist group Gamaa Islamiya in Minya, said "there is not a single case of Christian kidnapping that has a sectarian motive or linked to the Islamist groups."

He blamed the "security chaos" in Egypt and said the way to stop kidnappings is to create popular committees — vigilante groups that the Gamaa Islamiya has been promoting since a spate of strikes in the police last month.

Egypt's Christians, followers of one of the world's most ancient churches, make up about 10 percent of the country's estimated 90 million people. They have long complained of discrimination that keeps them out of some top jobs and of inadequate protection by authorities.

But their fears have dramatically escalated with the political rise of Islamists. Election victories vaulted Islamist political parties to domination of parliament, and President Mohammed Morsi is a veteran of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Islamists in Minya and elsewhere in Egypt insist they do not discriminate against Christians. Morsi has repeatedly asserted the equality of Muslims and Christians. Last month, a hard-line cleric was referred to trial for insulting religion for anti-Christian comments.

The governor of Minya, Mustafa Kamel Issa, a Brotherhood member, has met several times with Christian leaders in the province and has spoken of encouraging "a consciousness of tolerance" among Christians and Muslims.

Still, ultraconservative Muslim clerics have become more overt in anti-Christian rhetoric in sermons and on religious TV stations. In rural areas like Minya, hard-liners often hold sway after decades of persecution, taking advantage of the chaos and lawlessness of the two years since Mubarak's ouster to flex their muscles as the only real power on the ground.

The Brotherhood and its political party frequently underline their respect for Christian rights. But at times members reveal an attitude suggesting a second-class status for the community.

On Wednesday, Yasser Hamza, an official in the Brotherhood's party, argued in a TV interview that while the campaign slogan "Islam is the solution" is permissible, the slogan "Christianity is the solution" would not be. He was addressing specific election rules, but then broadly declared, "This is an Islamic nation with an overwhelming Muslim majority ... The minority doesn't have absolute rights, it has relative rights."

In Minya, Christians make up an estimated 35 percent of the population of around 4 million, the highest percentage of any province in Egypt. In the 1990s, it and other parts of the south were the heartland of the insurgency of Islamic militants who attacked police and Christians in a campaign to create an Islamic state that was crushed by Mubarak's security forces. Now, those groups have forsworn violence and have political parties, and they wield a powerful influence.

Beyond kidnappings, Christians here say they are targeted by other criminals, including thugs who squat on Christian-owned land and refuse to leave until paid or gangs who run protection rackets targeting the community's businesses.

Ahmed Salah Shabib, a rights activist from Minya, said criminals are convinced they will not be held accountable.

"They feel that there is a political cover for their actions. Additionally, they see the Christians as second-class citizens to whom they can do whatever they want with impunity," he said.

Father Estephanos of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Samalout, a town that has seen multiple kidnappings, says the state has indirectly encouraged crime against Christians by not prosecuting Muslims blamed for attacks on churches and Christian-owned homes and business around the country.

"The state has made Christian blood cheap," he told the AP at his office, as he dealt with the latest kidnapping: a young boy, Andrew, who was snatched from his father's arms on a Samalout street a day earlier.

"Do you have news about Andrew?" he asked the boy's uncle on the telephone. "Did you hear his voice? Are the negotiations underway already?"

Estephanos said the kidnappers wanted a ransom equivalent to about $103,000 from the family, which has a lucrative animal feed business.

"The Islamists see Christians as a people who have no rights or even as non-citizens," he said.

The Interior Ministry official acknowledged that Christians are seen as less defended.

"Kidnapping Christians is an easy way to make money," he said. They "don't have the tribal or clan backup that will deter kidnappers and they are happy to pay the ransom to gain the freedom of their loved ones."

Christians also say they are seeing an increase in the disappearance of Christian underage girls, who are later found out to have converted to Islam and married Muslim men. They accuse conservative clerics of encouraging conversions, which often ignite deadly fights between families that can turn into a cycle of blood feuds.

Christian farmer Ishaq Aziz's 17-year-old daughter Nirmeen went missing on Valentine's Day, fueling speculation that she has converted and will reappear with a Muslim husband once she turns 18.

Aziz, 47, and his family are preparing for that day. They have sold some farmland to buy firearms, and Aziz explained matter-of-factly that Nirmeen and her husband will be killed first — "it is a question of honor" — and then the guns will turn against the groom's family.

"But we will happily take her back if she comes back with her faith intact," he said. "Even if she is pregnant, a cousin will marry her," he said, wiping a tear with the sleeve of his dark blue galabiya robe.

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Hamas says it's not meddling in Egyptian affairs

CAIRO (AP) — The leader of the Palestinian group Hamas says there is broad cooperation between his group and Egypt's security government, dismissing reports that Hamas is endangering Egypt's national security.

Khaled Mashaal's comments in a conference Thursday in Cairo follow unconfirmed Egyptian media reports linking Hamas to increased lawlessness in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders the Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas.

The reports accused Hamas of orchestrating one of the bloodiest attacks against Egypt's army in decades. In August 2012, 16 soldiers were killed along the Gaza-Egypt border. Hamas has strongly denied that it was involved.

Mashaal called the accusations "defamations," and said it is Hamas' duty to protect Egypt's security.

Hamas leaders were in Cairo this week to meet with security, intelligence and military officials.

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Egyptian blogger accused of violence released

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian authorities released a prominent Egyptian blogger Tuesday after he refused to cooperate with prosecutors over allegations of instigating violence against the country's most powerful Islamist group in comments posted on social media.

The blogger, Alaa Abdel-Fattah, was freed following his demand that an investigative judge take over his case, according to one of his lawyers, Malek Adly. His attorneys are now awaiting a decision on the request, which amounts to a snub to the prosecutor's office by questioning its independence.

Abdel-Fattah handed himself in to authorities earlier Tuesday, a day after the country's prosecutor general ordered his arrest along with four other activists also accused of inciting violence. The arrest warrants stoked concerns among Egypt's opposition that Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was using the prosecutor's office to go after political opponents.

The allegations against the activists are rooted in clashes between supporters and opponents of Morsi outside the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in east Cairo last week that left 200 people injured in the worst bout of political violence here in months.

Activists say the arrest warrants, which closely followed a televised address by Morsi in which he warned that he would soon take exceptional measures in the face of violence, could herald a wave of arrests of opposition leaders.

Abdel-Fattah and the other activists questioned the independence of the prosecutor general, saying he is beholden to Morsi. The president appointed the prosecutor late last year despite an uproar from the judiciary.

Dressed in a prison jumpsuit to show his readiness to face jail, Abdel-Fattah arrived at the Cairo office of Prosecutor General Talaat Abdullah on Tuesday surrounded by several dozen protesters chanting slogans denouncing Morsi and his group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

From inside the prosecutor's office, the blogger posted messages on Twitter saying that most of the accusations against him were based on comments sent to his account by others, rather than anything he posted himself. He also said on Twitter that he refused to respond to the authorities' questions "because of partiality of the prosecutor general."

However, the prosecutor's office offered a different account. The prosecutor's spokesman posted a message on the office's official Facebook page that said Abdel-Fattah cooperated with officials during the questioning. It said he denied the accusations against him, and that the Twitter or Facebook accounts were his.

Abdel-Fattah and his lawyer dismissed the prosecutor's version of events, and said they will file complaints against them for allegedly forging official documents.

"I said only that I stick to my right to be silent," Abdel-Fattah told The Associated Press. He said his lawyers refused to admit the evidence to the case because they were photocopies of social media websites. "They did no investigative efforts at all."

This is not the first time Abdel-Fattah has butted heads with Egypt's authorities since the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak more than two years ago. He was detained for two months in late 2011 by the then-ruling military over allegations he attacked soldiers carrying out a bloody crackdown on protesters. He was later released without charge.

The Friday clashes outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters were the worst violence between the Brotherhood and its opponents in three months.

The protest was called in response to earlier violence outside the building, in which Brotherhood supporters beat up several activists and attacked reporters. Both sides brought hundreds of supporters to the new demonstration, which devolved into street fighting with knives, fists, stones, sticks, and birdshot. Both sides beat the others followers. Police fired tear gas but did not try to separate the two sides.

Brotherhood officials accuse the protesters of attacking its offices and say its members were defending the building. Protesters, in turn, blame Brotherhood members for sparking the violence, saying they tried to encircle the rally from the back.

At least six anti-Morsi protesters were detained during the violence, and the prosecutors ordered them to be held for 15 days pending investigation.

Brotherhood offices have frequently been ransacked and torched in Egypt's recent turmoil.

The prosecutor's office says it is examining statements and video clips posted on activists' Facebook and Twitter accounts, which allegedly include calls to burn the offices of the Brotherhood and kill Brotherhood members. A wider inquiry will examine the contents of social networking sites in the run-up to Friday's clashes.

Abdel-Fattah and the other activists ordered detained were key figures in the 2011 anti-Mubarak uprising who later led demonstrations against the military generals who took power after Mubarak. Since Morsi took office in June as the country's first democratically elected president, they have protested what they see as the new leader's dictatorial style of rule.

The opposition accuses Morsi of acting like his predecessor, of not living up to his promises to have an inclusive political process and of acting in the Brotherhood's interests rather than in Egypt's national interest.

The Brotherhood, meanwhile, accuses the opposition of having no grassroots support, and says the president should be challenged through the ballot box, not street protests.

Meanwhile, Egypt's interim parliament, the Shura Council, said it is working on drafting a law to regulate protests. The law would give the authorities the right to deny permission to demonstrations that harm "citizens' interests," including by blocking traffic.

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Egyptian Christian who died in Libya prison buried

ASSIUT, Egypt (AP) — An Egyptian Christian who died in prison in Libya after he was detained on suspicion of having proselytized there has been buried in a subdued ceremony in his hometown in southern Egypt.

Local church head Priest Baqi Sadaqa told the funeral congregation Wednesday that Ezzat Atallah's death earlier this week was a "crime against Egypt," and expressed concern about Islamists' rising clout in Egypt and Libya.

Sadaqa says Attalah was tortured. An Egyptian diplomat has said he likely died of natural causes. Attalah suffered from diabetes and heart troubles.

Scores of Egyptian Christians protested this week after reports emerged of Atallah's death and the detention of as many as 100 of others by Islamist militias on suspicion they were spreading Christianity in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

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Egyptian Christian dies in Libyan detention

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian Foreign Ministry official says a man suspected of trying to spread Christianity in Libya has died in prison there.

The diplomat says Ezzat Atallah, who suffered from diabetes and heart ailments, likely died of natural causes. He spoke anonymously Sunday in line with regulations.

Atallah was among five Evangelical Christian Egyptians detained in Libya for allegedly proselytizing in the predominantly Muslim nation.

Last week, Egypt's Foreign Ministry intervened to win release from Libya of 55 Egyptians who were also suspected of proselytizing. Thirty-five of them were deported for illegally entering the country, while 20 were cleared to stay in Libya.

Also, four foreigners under investigation for alleged espionage and proselytizing remain in a Libyan prison. They are a Swedish-American, a South Korean, a South African and an Egyptian.

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Unrest in Egyptian city draws in military

CAIRO (AP) — Clashes between protesters and the police in in the restive Egyptian city of Port Said that entered their second day Monday have dragged in the military to a dramatic extent into the nation's turmoil.

At times in the violence, frictions have arisen between the police that were battling protesters and army forces that tried to break up the fighting. Troops in between the two sides were overwhelmed by police tear gas, one army colonel was wounded by live fire, and troops even opened fire over the heads of police, bringing cheers from protesters.

Three policemen and three civilians were killed in the fighting, and troops stood by as protesters torched a government complex Monday that contains the city's main police building.

The scenes, following three weeks of strikes and protests in the city, have underlined a scenario that many in Egypt view with a mix of concern and relief — that the military may move back into politics, prompted by mushrooming protests, a breakdown in law and order and mounting challenges to the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. Some opponents of Morsi have outright called for the military to take power, and even those who say they oppose a military return have used the prospect to pressure Morsi to find some consensus in the country's political crisis.

Prominent opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei warned of decaying state institutions and rising levels of violence.

"The regime in its current form is unable to manage the country," he wrote on his Twitter account. "There must be a radical review before it is too late."

Unable to halt the violence, both the police and military Monday sought to deny any tensions between them. Meanwhile, there was no official comment from the presidency following one of the worst flare-ups of violence since January.

Unrest also spread in other parts of the country. In the capital, Cairo, protesters blocked the main thoroughfare along the Nile River, and police tried to clear them with volleys of tear gas. Other disgruntled young men set fire to two police cars in two different locations in Cairo, sending police fleeing the vehicles in the middle of traffic.

The unrest in Egypt is reaching new heights, just weeks before the parliamentary elections scheduled next month, which have further enflamed an already tense political landscape.

Opposition leaders are calling for a boycott of the elections, accusing Morsi of failing to seek consensus over critical issues, such as the drafting of the constitution and the elections law. Morsi opponents accuse him of working to lock his Muslim Brotherhood's hold on power.

"How can elections be held with the tragic situation in Port Said and as martyrs are falling there and in other provinces," former presidential candidate and leading opposition member Amr Moussa said in an email. "How can elections be held with security undermined everywhere in the nation."

Months of violence have prompted calls by some in the opposition for the military, which ruled for nearly 17 months after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, to take back power and contain the discontent.

Hundreds of Port Said residents, followed by some in other provinces, took the symbolic step of going to public registrar offices to issue "power of delegation" documents asking the military to step in "manage" the country.

Abdullah el-Sinawi, a commentator and columnist in the daily Al-Shorouk newspaper, said the "clashes between police and military which took place, even if they were limited, represent the absence of the rule of law."

Such a clash between two powerful institutions "warns of the decay of the state," he said. There were increasing signs from the generals of their displeasure with Morsi's management of the country and lack of political openness, he said, raising the specter of military intervention, perhaps not to remove Morsi but to prevent a breakdown.

Morsi supporters and members of the Muslim Brotherhood have downplayed rising expressions of discontent. Mohammed el-Beltagi, a senior Brotherhood member, told reporters that Egyptians will never accept the military back in power.

Another senior Brotherhood member, Gamal Heshmat, told the legislature Monday that the media is portraying Port Said as if it is "on fire."

"Anyone watching from outside will think that Egypt is all Port Said," he told a parliamentary session, according to the main state-run daily, Al-Ahram.

Port Said, on the Mediterranean coast at the mouth of the Suez Canal, has been in turmoil since late January, when a Cairo court issued death sentences against 21 people, most residents of the city, for involvement in Egypt's deadliest soccer riot in February 2012. The verdicts sparked angry protests in the city, which turned into deadly clashes with police, leaving more than 40 dead, including two policemen.

Residents have been outraged by what they call excessive force by the police and by Morsi's backing of the security forces. The police said most of the protester deaths came during an attempt to storm a prison.

Tensions have risen further ahead of a court hearing planned for Saturday that is expected to confirm the death sentences and issue new verdicts for police officers and other Port Said defendants also charged in the soccer riot case.

Port Said's fighting Sunday began when thousands of protesters marched on the police headquarters after word emerged that 39 defendants in the soccer case had been transferred to prisons outside the city ahead of Saturday's hearing.

The protesters Sunday lobbed rocks and firebombs at the police building. The police, heavily deployed around their building, moved out to try to push back the protesters.

Army officers tried but failed to negotiate an end to the fighting. Then the troops began getting hit. An army colonel was shot in the right leg by live ammunition, military spokesman Ahmed Mohammed Ali said. Soldiers were overwhelmed by the tear gas that police were firing at the protesters. In one case, captured on video, a tear gas canister fell inside a military armored vehicle, and the choking soldiers stumbled out, helped by protesters who carried them to an ambulance.

The military deployed their vehicles between the protesters and police. They fired in the air in the direction of the police, witnesses said. "The people and army are one hand," cheering protesters chanted.

One protester, 25-year-old Mohammed Atef, said the scene restored his confidence in the military. "We felt they are feeling the injustices against us; that they decided to protect us too."

But another said she believed the military was only acting to protect itself. "The military only moved against the police when one of theirs was shot," said Amira el-Alfi, 33. "It is pretending, and is moving neither to protect institutions, nor to protect people."

On Monday, soldiers and military vehicles escorted thousands marching in the funeral procession for the civilians killed in the fighting the day before.

"It is now war between us and you, Interior Ministry," the marchers chanted as they carried the coffins of the dead to the cemetery. Many wave the black-white-and-green flags of Port Said that have become a symbol of the city's revolt against the government.

On their way back from the funeral, protesters hurled rocks at the police headquarters, which lies in a government complex. Police responded with volleys of tear gas. The military largely stood by. Flames were visible from the provincial government's headquarters and a nearby tax authority office, adjacent to the police building.

On Monday, both the military and the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police, sought to dispel any sign of friction between their forces. The Interior Ministry issued a statement saying "unknown elements" fired arbitrarily at the police and military with the aim of sowing sedition and causing escalation.

In a statement late Sunday, the military denied it fired at police. On Monday, the military spokesman Ali said that the fact that people on both sides were injured indicates that unknown elements were behind the gunfire.

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